


Motionless Wheel

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Coma, Communication Failure, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Serious Injuries, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:14:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you mean, he’s not here?”  John stared at Woolsey like he’d suddenly broken out in Mandarin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John hesitated with his hand in the air. It was already starting to curl, his head already echoing with the _crack_ and _bang_ he wanted to hear. But some tiny, controlled part of him noted that starting out aggressively probably wouldn’t earn him any favors.

And if anybody was sleeping...

His fingers trembled as he pressed the doorbell. He ignored it.

One second, two seconds, three Mississippi, and if the door didn’t open, so help him he _was_ going to bust the thing down, imitate Ronon and probably break his shoulder, but he didn’t _care_ because inside was—

“Colonel!” Jeanie belatedly opened the door further, allowing the shadows lurking on her shoulders and underneath her eyes to depart. Some of them, anyhow. “John, what are you—”

Whatever else she said, he didn’t hear it. He could see past her shoulder—had she always been that short, or had John just never noticed?—the familiar duffle with its green-stenciled lettering and yes, god, he was right, he was _right_ and he had to get inside right the hell now, because if he was right then what he wanted was _inside_.

“—a word I’ve said, have you? Okay.” Jeanie hip-butted the door open again and then resolutely pushed on the screen. “John. John Sheppard!”

“What?” The word came out thick and unrecognizable.

Something in it made Jeanie soften because her hand was gentle as it closed around his wrist. “If you barge in here you’ll break your neck. I haven’t cleaned up from Madison’s latest adventure, yet.”

That—meant nothing, as far as John could tell, but then he was moving, _being_ moved really—and what was it with him and women who wanted to propel him one place or another?—into a living room that was as thickly-covered as a minefield, following behind Jeanie as she deftly wove her way past small, cheerfully colored objects John couldn’t track, leading him up the stairs.

Cresting the final step was like being plunged into another world. _Gone_ was the bright, summer sunshine that’d tried vainly to warm him the whole trip north. _Gone_ were the sounds of a busy suburban neighborhood, bugs and birds leading a merry dance while children played and the occasional car whined its way down the curving drive. _Gone_ was the oddly haloed, streaking light that seemed to touch everything John looked at, distracting him even further.

Up here it was cool, and dark, and calm. _Safe_.

Jeanie didn’t knock, but she did listen intently before opening a door.

One bed, normal sized and looking oddly massive in the room. Two tables bracketed the head, a tv lurking in darkness at the foot, slate grey and watchful as John carefully moved over carpet that absorbed every sound but the hectic, frantic rasp of his own breathing. He was panting, he realized, maybe even wheezing and he didn’t care, he could _stop_ breathing for all he cared because Rodney was here.

Rodney was _here_.

“He’s not okay,” Jeanie said softly, her voice gone tight and painful like her throat had suddenly closed. “Not at all. And if you yell at him, I’ll kick your ass. That’s _my_ job.”

When the door closed, John’s knees gave out. Just _thump_ , and he was on the floor, leaning against the bed with his face buried in an elbow he didn’t remember lifting, hand groping across cool sheets and warmer, fleece-soft blankets to finally find skin, and bone, the curve he just barely remembered and if he held on too tightly, there wasn’t anyone to chastise him for it (yet, maybe yet) and no one to hear him (but there was, there was, right _there_ ) sob, broken and horrible as he finally began to believe.

* * *

**Then**

“What do you mean, he’s not here?” John stared at Woolsey like he’d suddenly broken out in Mandarin. Where would he _go?_

To his credit, Woolsey looked deeply uncomfortable. “As I said, Colonel, he is no longer here. Doctor McKay departed this morning via the ’gate to Earth, although where exactly I didn’t bother to question. He has leave time available to him and despite the nature of our jobs, I’ve found that...” For one precious second, Woolsey looked human. “He asked me.”

“Asked you what?” John asked stupidly.

“To take at least a week’s leave. Perhaps longer, he wasn’t certain.” Woolsey’s eyes narrowed. Over the last month or so, everyone had come to ignore how constipated it made Woolsey seem. They saw this look a _lot_. “Things have been relatively calm, here, and there was no reason for me to deny it.”

“He didn’t give you enough advance warning,” John suggested, instantly. “We’ve got the trade negotiations to renew, and you know the Almorathians don’t like change, which means the whole team has to be there. Zelenka can’t handle the city on his own.”

Woolsey just shook his head, halting the flow—there were more, John abruptly had _tons_ more—and if there was anything pitying about the gesture, it was mostly masked. “Doctor Zelenka is more than qualified to run the city on a limited basis. Should anything more pressing come up, I will of course make immediate contact and, if necessary, find a suitably knowledgeable consultant. Although he was quite clear that he _wouldn’t_ be that far out of contact. The trade negotiations are a waste of his time and talents and both of you have been bemoaning your forced participation for weeks. Nice try, Colonel, but I do read those mission reports you write and so long as an adequate excuse is given—”

Ah ha! John thought, we need an adequate excuse!

“—and I’m certain we can come up with something more plausible than _the dog ate my homework_ ,” Woolsey continued, face twisting with bemused understanding, “then the Almorathians will be quite satisfied. As for not giving enough advanced notice, Colonel, you are quite correct. I would prefer two weeks to fully prepare for anyone’s departure. However. I could not in good conscience deny this request. Advanced warning is a formality and nothing more, which you well know.”

John was too controlled to wince, but he wanted to. Doing things ‘formally’ was a sticky point he and Woolsey not-argued over frequently. One day they _would_ have a real, knock-down drag-out argument and then things would probably run more smoothly. But Woolsey’s constant reliance on strict politeness made John’s spine turn liquid, shoulders slumped and rounded, while his manner turned even more easy-going—within certain topics, anyway—and infuriatingly, civilly insolent. Both of them were so _cultured,_ no matter how thick the animosity, which meant the more John wanted a fight, the further they got away from it.

“Well, since it’s my team and my negotiation, I say we need him back. Call him back.”

This time there was nothing masked about Woolsey’s expression. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but Doctor McKay is a civilian. Until he uses up his leave-time or there is a crisis—a real one,” he added, sharply, “then we must simply wait.”

Executing the neatest turn-and-spin John had ever seen from a civilian, Woolsey gave a nod and quickly walked away. Leaving John standing in the middle of the hallway wondering what the _hell_ had just happened and why he had a sinking suspicion that, somehow, this was all his fault.

And worse—much, much worse, _catastrophically_ worse—Rodney wouldn’t blame him for it. Probably.

He wandered aimlessly, only coming back to himself with a yank when he realized he was jittering in front of Teyla’s door. He could go right in, of course—they all had a standing invite for each others quarters—but his feet were reluctant to actually move without permission. So he engaged the chime and tried to think steady thoughts.

It didn’t work, clearly, because Teyla took one look at him and dragged him into her room by the hand, locking the door behind him even as she sat him down on her bed and plopped Torren into his arms. “I will make tea,” she said, firmly.

“Were you always this good at multitasking, before?”

She shot him a reproving look. “Yes.”

Well, then. John concentrated on the baby looking at him sleepily, drawn as always into a kind of meditative calm that only Torren could bring about. Which was why Teyla had immediately given him the baby. Not at _all_ because he was one of the few other people on base, also including Ronon, Kanaan, and—weirdly—Lorne, who could hold Torren without him dissolving into raucous wailing. 

Huge brown eyes, as liquid as his mother’s, blinked up at him. “Hey, little man,” John said. Ronon’s nickname was annoyingly appropriate for such a solemn child. “I think your Uncle John is a moron.”

“I believe we are in caucus regarding that matter,” Teyla muttered to her small kettle.

“What?”

“Nothing, John. The tea will be ready momentarily.”

“Okay.” Blinking as rapidly as the kid, John looked back down. “You aren’t going to call me any names, right? Not even polite ones, like your mom?”

The tea was a familiar one, sharp and almost bitter smelling. Teyla left a cup steaming on the far table as a pointed reminder: for Teyla, tea _meant_ something, weird rituals and gestures John didn’t understand beyond the simple fact that if Teyla made you tea, you drank it. So he’d drink it. “You have heard.”

A flicker of anger warmed him from tip to toes. “You mean you _knew?”_

“We discussed it prior to his departure,” Teyla said with a regal nod. “He was most—agitated. He would not say why, precisely.”

John didn’t need to meet her eyes to know she knew the cause. Or at least the general idea, if not the specifics. He was pretty sure most of the base could figure that out in seconds, which was, hey, _the problem_ right there. The flicker of anger flared into a flame that was probably blue at the bottom and John’s skin felt too tight.

Teyla made a rude noise and then _slapped him on the back of his head_. It wasn’t a hard hit—he was holding her kid, after all—but it shocked him into lurching forward and then around, anger vanished in total shock. “Teyla! What the—what!”

He’d whirled around, hip more firmly on the bed and leg bent to steady himself, baby caught up close against his chest, so he could clearly see the way Teyla’s face was tight and hard with anger, a diamond-edged mask all of them had learned to fear. “If you are upset that he left without telling you, then perhaps you should examine his motivations,” she said, clearly, precisely, and so cold John’s insides immediately went numb, flame utterly extinguished. “If you are, however, angry for other reasons, as I suspect you are, than I suggest you take this time to examine what, _exactly_ , you are upset about and what _exactly_ you desire him to do about it.”

“Teyla—”

“I am going out. You will remain and watch Torren,” how easily a pleasure became a punishment with just a certain tone of voice, “until I see fit to return. When I have done so, if you wish, we will speak. And I will see you this evening at seven for our sparring session regardless.”

Jarred and reeling despite his weight centered firmly on the bed, John watched as Teyla gathered her things and departed without so much as glancing at him. This wasn’t the first time Teyla had pulled her Mother-says-grow-up act with him—hell, he had his own version for _her_ , they were always pulling each other up by the bootstraps—but rarely did it leave him feeling so grasping and desperate, as helpless as the child waving a spit-slick fist at him in his arms.

“Crap,” he told Torren. And, “Don’t tell your mother I said that. Don’t you say that, either.” And then, a few moments later, low and achingly heartfelt, _“Crap.”_

* * *

**Now**

The blinds were taped down, preventing any real light from doing more than diffuse gently along the edges. John had no idea what time it was, his Atlantis-to-Earth clock screwed all to hell, but he figured it was morning. It felt like morning.

Or maybe he just wanted it to be. Symbolism, of a sort.

An audible huff had John’s head whipping around, ignoring the flare of pain that followed, because it was the first genuine noise he’d heard since before he’d fallen asleep. Rodney’s chest rose and fell with rhythmic surety, the only thing John could really grab hold to because the rest of him looked like _crap_. Where he wasn’t dark with bruises and exhaustion, he was paper-white: bandages were the only shock of actual color—drab and blandly beige as they were—on him. The blanket was red, or at least, with stronger light John supposed it might be red, and that was just more than his mind, with its veering off towards symbolism, could take. 

It was hot as hell in the room, John mentally justified as he began carefully untucking the blanket and pushing into a crumpled heap around Rodney’s feet. He was sweating! It was entirely reasonable for him to ask Jeanie for another blanket. Or maybe just go out and _buy_ one, really soft, soft enough that it felt like down, like—oh— _flannel_ , Rodney liked that. He liked that shirt John had, his one holdover from when he was a house-living husband and had fixed whatever he’d been pointed at, grateful for something to contribute, something he could do that would automatically be right, maybe even make Nancy smile.

There was another soft huff, a dragonfly’s version of a sigh and John froze. Was Rodney cold? He looked cold, like there wasn’t enough blood in his body. Except Rodney was _never_ cold, always kicking off the blankets John loved, and—and god, he had to stop doing this, John told himself firmly. If he kept getting lost in mental tangents then he was never going to do this.

Which, yes, John was aware was the _point_ of tangents. But he’d never shied away from hard things in his life—except when he went to other countries and, eventually, galaxies to avoid them, and hell, Rodney really was cold. He was shivering.

John just managed to get the blanket back up approximately where it’d been when the door cracked open.

Something incredibly well-honed and trained in John’s mind went _not dressed! Hide! She’ll see!_

Fortunately, the rest of his brain mobbed it until it shut the fuck up.

Jeanie didn’t even glance at John’s state of undress—wife-beater undershirt and a pair of boxers he didn’t remember changing into—or his position—on the bed, tucked up as close as he dared to Rodney’s side, something he _also_ didn’t remember doing—too busy setting a tray down on the table nearest the door. A mountain of amber pill-bottles rolled around next to a very tall, very thick, very white glass.

“Okay, Mer,” she said, cheer only a little forced, “time for breakfast.”

Breakfast turned out to be the glass. A shake, John realized belatedly, something probably protein heavy and full of nutrients and calories and most likely tasted like _crap_. John found himself waiting for the inevitable explosion of just how badly it tasted. It never came.

Instead, Rodney didn’t do anything at all until a straw was placed in his mouth. Then he sucked. Sort of. Messily.

John grabbed what turned out to be his travel-stained shirt and immediately began mopping up Rodney’s face—Rodney hated being dirty where he could feel it—before Jeanie had the chance. “I got it.”

“The doctor said this was better for him than the I.V.,” she said, handing over the glass and starting to pop open the bottles one by one by one by one by one. Soon she had a small, multicolored Everest of pills that shifted ominously as she lifted the large mortar she’d put them in. “And that because he was drinking he wasn’t actually in a coma or asleep. Just.”

Just not awake.

“Okay,” John said. Each little trail of white became his personal enemy, the goal to eradicate it as gently as possible. Rodney’s lips were incredibly chapped and his stubble rasped under the soft cotton.

“D’you know I had to fight to get all pills to be in pill form?” The pestle looked as big as a child’s forearm. “I mean, powder-pills and not gel-caps or something. They kept wanting to know why. And Kaleb keeps wanting to know why I do this here, instead of just doing it all of it downstairs where I’d have more leverage.”

Each twist of the pestle sounded like she was grinding old bones, or dragging fingernails over a dusty, chalk-filled slate. It was the kind of noise that either raised the dead, or called every single horny cat in a five-mile radius.

Rodney gave another almost-imperceptible huff.

“Think I can take over the afternoon shift?”

“Try ten o’clock, and I don’t know yet. We’ll see.”

This time John did wince. He felt stripped down, a tortoise popped roughly from its shell and looking vainly for some kind of hardened material to hide behind. He wanted to protest his reliability but Jeanie would probably only scoff and say something painfully true without any inflection at all. So he said, again, “Okay.”

Finally there was nothing but a fine, vaguely peach colored powered in the mortar. Jeanie careful wiped the pestle off so almost no stray bits were left behind, then scraped the whole thing into the now-empty glass, streaks of white on the sides dying pink. John watched with admiration as she got almost every single granule into the glass and began swirling it around.

Except that wasn’t skill. That was _practice._

“How many times a day do you do this?” John asked, trying to swallow down his growing horror.

Jeanie’s expression was very kind. “Five.” She left with the door part-way open behind her.

John focused on the horizon of the carpet, the farthest point he could see, and quietly started screaming inside his own mind. Five times a day. For at least a few days—John wasn’t sure how many, couldn’t make his mind really focus on numbers more abstract than _one_ , Rodney inhaled, and _two_ Rodney exhaled, but _five times a day for several days_ , oh god.

He wasn’t anywhere near ready to stop mentally howling when Jeanie returned, glass now full of water and repeated the drinking process, but that was why it was _mentally_ , John consoled himself, and leaned down to help her. Jeanie took more care, this time, to make sure everything went in Rodney’s mouth and not coasting down the sides of his face. 

“Tell me what I can do.”

Processing that for a few moments, finally Jeanie nodded. “Hold what I tell you to hold, lift or bend what I tell you to lift or bend.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said in his most respectful voice.

It was work. It was _hard_ work and John thought seriously about leaving, just running the hell away, twice, before Jeanie’s quiet, undemanding strength reminded him that he didn’t have a choice to be a coward now and to just do what he was told. So he did.

Rodney’s body was carefully looked over and wiped, each frail, bruised and broken part of him handled with the same kind of efficient tenderness of an experienced nurse. Some bandages were changed and reapplied—the gash on his right thigh was a mess of red, exposed muscle and it was only Jeanie’s placid reminder that there was probably no nerve damage and he should’ve seen it _before_ , that kept him together. The bedding was stripped around Rodney and then remade so quickly it seemed like magic, Rodney cleaner and even whiter as he was gently replaced on his pillows.

“I don’t do the bedding every day,” Jeanie said as she worked. “But sometimes his wounds seep, and since you’re here, I just want to make sure.”

“I don’t—I can—”

“Shut up and help me change the catheter bag.” She made him dispose of the contents, a job he did without protest. When he returned she was marking up a xeroxed sheet. “These are the basic dos and don’t. I’ve got to take Madison to daycare and then I need to go and have coffee somewhere else, which means you’re in charge. I know it’s only an hour,” Rodney’s sister said with a steely, familiar glare, “but we’re going over everything first.”

Twenty minutes later it was just him and Rodney in the room. John was still in his boxers and undershirt, half-crouched on the floor as he ran his fingers lightly over every single line of Rodney’s body, head to toe, heedless of bandages. He had to touch everywhere, a compulsion he’d been fighting since last night. He had to touch everything.

He really needed to buy a different blanket.

“Wake up, you stupid bastard,” John whispered. “Wake up.”

* * *

**Then**

It took roughly forty-two hours for people to notice something was actually wrong. 

Everyone knew Rodney had left, of course. A closed society and gossip was like chocolate and peanut butter. New like Rodney just up and returning to Earth— _“Is it his sister again?” “I heard he was consoling Sam Carter since she couldn’t come back.” “ Consoling, huh?”_—wasn’t going to be ignored. That was like finding _jerky_ , good for days and days of conversations. Innocuous stuff, though, mostly. Just picked up here and there. It wasn’t even that _interesting_ , beyond its newness.

Not yet, anyway.

John stayed away from Teyla and Ronon in a foolish attempt to stop them from guessing. Which only really confirmed their guesses, a neat little paradoxical prophecy he knew about beforehand but couldn’t help from fulfilling. It was _private_ , he wanted to shout to the waiting, watchful eyes of his friends, his men, Christ, all of Atlantis. Being in the military was exactly like being in a fishbowl, John knew that, he’d _lived_ it all his adult life, but everywhere else he’d at least had the veneer of privacy, places he could go, secrets buried under sand and a smirk.

It was ironic that the one place he felt truly comfortable, the one place that really accepted him, foibles and oddities and all, was also the same place that denied him shelter. Or at least, the kind of shelter he wanted.

By day three, Lorne was silently making decisions without clearing them with John, something that ordinarily would’ve had John _jumping_ for damned joy—Lorne was good at his job and really didn’t need to pull a mother-may-he act no matter how funny he seemed to find it—but now left him feeling grumpy and out of the loop. So he’d chase Lorne down and demand that he account for this training mission, or that report, and Lorne would be efficient and thorough and completely blank-faced respectful.

“Is there a reason you’re baiting me, Major?”

“No, sir.”

John narrowed his eyes and tried to remember how his commanding officers had dealt with him when _he_ did this. Mostly, there’d been a lot of shouting. John felt sudden a sympathy for a long line of shouters and he sighed, hating himself more than a lot. “Congratulations. You’ve just managed to make me do something I thought _impossible.”_

Lorne didn’t ask what, but there was a hint of kindness in his voice when he said, “Do we know when Doctor McKay is due to return?”

Ice. Ice, and hate, and a kind of burning, consuming anger that should’ve countered the ice until it was a damned _flood_ , but only seemed to make it icier and colder and harder. John had no idea what expression he wore, but Lorne actually took a quick, involuntary step _backwards_ when John looked up at him, so he could take a guess. “You’re dismissed, Major.”

“Yes, sir.”

The minute his door closed John slammed his clenched fist into the wall until the shiny material looked dented and his knuckles ached a reminder that he was forty, not twenty, and deeply stupid. “Congratulations, John,” he told the dent. “Now everybody’s _really_ going to start talking.”

Because Lorne wouldn’t say anything. He would say _exactly_ nothing at all, he was a damned good guy and as close to a friend as a second in command and his commanding officer could be, and that was irrelevant. Within an hour the entire base would know that Rodney’s departure had more to do with Atlantis than with whatever attractions lay on Earth, which meant John was fucked in all kinds of new and interesting ways.

Right, then.

John lied for the rest of the day and the next one, too. He lied every time he smiled, or told a joke, or acted like he was fine, everything was normal, nothing to see here, move along folks, the attraction’s over thataway. He was _good_ at it, too—Brad Pitt ain’t got nothing on his acting skills—and eventually, just like he’d hoped, he started losing himself in the role, actually believing each new falsehood he spun until Ronon showed up at his door.

John stared up—and up, Christ, he would never get over how _tall_ Ronon was, and John wasn’t all that damned short, thank you very much—and sighed. “Don’t hit me. You don’t have as much control as Teyla.”

“Fine,” he grunted, and came inside.

“I thought we didn’t talk about these things,” John grumbled as he climbed back onto his bed, retrieving the comic he wasn’t reading.

Ronon just looked at him, firm and implacable.

“I mean, we’ve had, uh, _talks_ before and I know you hate them as much as I do.”

Probably more, really. Ronon continued to stare at him.

“And you know telling me to do something is useless. I’m stubborn, and I don’t like doing what I’m told.” Still funny even as he approached his twenty-year mark, too. “This is a waste of everybody’s time.”

Still, Ronon said nothing. And glared. Hard.

“Look, tell Teyla you tried. I’ll vouch for you if she asks me about it.” And, because it was Ronon, he added, “Look, he’ll come back and it’ll be fine. Really. We’ll... deal,” which was the biggest concession to the topic he’d made probably ever, and he felt really good about himself for saying even that much.

Ronon, however, snorted and tossed a stray dread over his shoulder. “Stop being such a dick,” he snapped and left.

After that, things got really bad.

There were _looks_. Curious at first, but as the days went by they got tighter and more accusing. Comments started being ‘whispered’ louder and louder. John no longer gave a damn what anyone thought and acted as petty and pissant as he wanted, which made him feel at least a little bit better, so he did it more often. Everything out of his mouth was either harsh and curt, or so drawlingly sarcastic that even the most forgiving of people started avoiding him as much as possible. John liked that just fine and smirked at their stiff, retreating backs. Being alone was his _thing_ , it always had been, the loner inside the pack, omega on the outskirts, and he took back that mantle like slipping into an old, comfortable shirt.

He realized, sometimes, late at night when his bed was cold and silver-gilt moonlight covered him like the blankets he couldn’t bear to pull higher, that he was sulking. Hell, he was practically regressing, because thirteen had not been a banner year for him, but he couldn’t stop. The moment he woke up, he remembered that dammit, Rodney wasn’t _there_ and John had no fucking clue why he’d gone, no matter how many times Teyla asked him sharp, leading questions or how many people shook pitying heads, and it made him angry, and defensive and fuck it all, he didn’t need this.

So every morning he forgot all the truths his sleeping mind whispered and every day was just a little bit worse.

Then they went off-world.

The negotiations went badly. Really badly. When Teyla came back limping and refusing to even _look_ at him, tersely reporting to Woolsey that she, Ronon, and Major Lorne’s team would return in two days time to try and repair diplomatic damages, Woolsey just nodded and said, “That’s too bad, Teyla, I know the cooks were particularly looking forward to making sure we had fresh bread after next week,” and John knew that he had to do something.

He reported stiff-backed and blank-faced, waiting for Woolsey to acknowledge him. “I’m relieving myself of duty,” he said.

Sighing, Woolsey didn’t look surprised. “Yes, I thought you might. Sit down, Colonel. I think perhaps we should talk. And, just so we’re clear,” he added, suddenly every inch the commander Carter had been, that Elizabeth had been, steel under an often dubious package, “request denied.”

* * *

**Now**

“Do you have a straight razor?”

Kaleb didn’t blink, although the curls over his forehead trembled a little. “I think so?”

“And a strop. Thanks.”

Kaleb did, in fact, have a straight razor and a strop which John busied himself with for a blissful ten minutes or so. For all that rasping, hair-raising sound was, well, _hair-raising_ , there was something relaxing about the familiar, repetitive motion of the blade getting slicker and shinier and sharper with each pass. After a few minutes of watching, Kaleb brought out a low, wide cup with a curved handle. It looked to be made of ivory.

“The good stuff,” he said and handed over a brush, as well.

Kaleb was good at understanding things. Without exposition.

Back in Rodney’s room—and it was always Rodney’s room, no matter that John slept there, too—John set everything up with a lot more efficiency that he expected. This was probably foolish. In fact, he was certain it was, which explained why he’d waited until Jeanie and Madison were out doing god knew what, leaving only Kaleb downstairs reading a mountain of papers that came out redder and redder with each pass.

Still.

The towel wasn’t as hot as it should’ve been, and it didn’t cover Rodney’s face completely since John had to loop it, irrationally terrified that Rodney would suddenly wake up unable to breathe if his nose was covered. The scent of Old Spice was nice, though, and this really _was_ the good stuff, raising a thick, stiff lather that John applied as delicately as if it was gold leaf on an equally priceless manuscript.

In a way, it kind of was.

“Okay,” John said once Rodney looked like Kris Kringle, “let’s do this.”

He talked a lot to Rodney. He also pretended quite fiercely that no one outside the door could hear.

“Don’t flinch on me, McKay, I’m good at this. My dad—my dad taught me how to use a straight razor when I was a kid. Made me practice on him for days before I could touch my own face just so I’d get used to the edge. He told me that I’d inherited my grandfather’s follicles, so I’d have to learn how to shave the way he did. I never met him. My grandfather. He died before I was born.”

The razor gleamed in the lamplight, crazy rainbows of refraction dizzying John for a moment. His hand was rock steady. Always steady as the blade slid down cheeks to reveal pale, soft skin, around full lips that John was _damned_ if he was going to nick. 

“I did okay the first day,” John continued, leaning down to do the tricky slope over the chin. “He said it was beginner’s luck, but I thought I was just that good. So the next day he went to work with a giant cut down his cheek and told everyone—everyone—that he’d fallen in the shower that morning.” John still remembered that stomach-dropping horror echoing through him and the way it got worse with each calm deflection. Each lie. “I never cut him again. No matter how many times he made me do it. So you’re in safe hands, Rodney. No nicks, no cuts. I promise.”

After so long, Rodney was really sporting the beginnings of a beard, so when John was done he carefully wiped Rodney free of foam and then set about repeating the process.. Starting with sharpening the blade one more time.

Mid-way through he paused and reached over to run his thumb over the corner of Rodney’s lips. The skin pulled like it should, blood-warm and soft even with stubble prickling his finger. “I’ve got you, you know that, right? I’m—I’m here.”

Rodney didn’t respond.

The second time John was even more careful. He’d grown a beard a few times and he knew just how sensitive newly-shorn skin could be.

“There,” he said later, finally finished. “You look better like this. Younger.” Rodney did, although John came to regret that. A younger-looking Rodney meant a more vulnerable Rodney, which meant John had to struggle with conflicting impulses. He _wanted_ to curl around Rodney like a damned dog, head on whatever part was least damaged just so he could hear each and every heartbeat, each steady inhale and exhale.

And he wanted to deny it. Wanted that so badly his shoulders ached with lack of hitting something—hitting _Rodney_ , for making him want it in the first place—and his lips were just as damned chapped as Rodney’s because he’d bitten them so often.

“Why the fuck won’t you wake up?” he rasped. “Come on, McKay, _wake up._ You’re not even really sleeping. Wake. Up!”

Jeanie told him she’d shouted herself hoarse, that first night in the hospital, trying to wake him up.

A gentle knock interrupted him. “John? The nurse is here.”

The nurse came by once or twice a day to look over Rodney. John still wasn’t sure just what Jeanie—and potentially Kaleb, who always looked mysterious when this subject came up—had done to convince a hospital to let a non-conscious person be transferred to a private home, but one of the conditions was a nurse would be dispatched to check their work.

Jeanie _had_ to have some pull, somewhere. John was sure of it.

“Hello, there,” the nurse always greeted, so bustling and cheerful, like her presence alone would lift the ever-present heaviness that lived in Rodney’s room.

John just nodded. He talked to Rodney, and Rodney’s family when he had to. That was it.

“Ah, he looks much better like this,” the nurse pattered, stroking Rodney’s cheeks lightly. Just once. “Now, then, let’s give you a good check. John, this is when you usually leave?”

He was too old to blush, so he didn’t. Just left, because he did always leave, because watching someone else who _wasn’t_ Jeanie start touching Rodney did very, very bad things to John’s insides.

Downstairs, John read the paper.

“He is getting better,” Kaleb said suddenly. “You know that, right?”

He did, actually. Each day the wounds closed up a little more, leaving shiny, baby-pink skin in its wake. Each day, Rodney’s muscles got a little more resilient as John diligently worked them so Rodney would find physical therapy not quite as bad as it could’ve been. At least, John hoped he wouldn’t.

Because he _was_ going through physical therapy. He was going to fucking wake up.

“Yeah. I know.”

“It’s only been a week.”

“Nine days,” John interrupted, voice abruptly hard. “It’s been nine days.” Nine days since Rodney turned up in the hospital. A week since they—the Millers—brought Rodney home. 

John had arrived three days after that.

Kaleb nodded easily. “Right, nine days. That’s not a lot of time,” he lied, because that was an _eternity_ as far as John was concerned, “and the doctors and nurses aren’t worried. Not even Jeanie’s worried anymore.”

“That’s because Jeanie’s practical and she’s got too much to do to waste time worrying,” John said it before he realized—however true it was—he was really thinking of his mother, working just as tirelessly to take care of _her_ dying mother, refusing to let the frail, sick-smelling woman go to a hospice. Dave had been the one to ask why she had so much to do. John had been old enough to know better. “She’ll complain when he’s back on Atlantis.”

“You mean she’ll worry.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” John asked, wearily rubbing his thigh because he wouldn’t allow himself to reach up and rub his head.

“No,” Kaleb said, gently. “You didn’t.”

John reran the sentence through his head and yeah, okay, he hadn’t said that. Except he had. “Same thing, for them. You know it is.”

“Not really,” Kaleb started, but then the nurse was clattering down the stairs with her report and additional instructions and John had to listen, really _listen_ , so he forgot all about what they’d been talking about. It didn’t really matter, anyway. Everything about the Miller house felt like a strange state of limbo to him. Not for _them_ —they had lives, and Madison, and things couldn’t just stop.

But for John—well, honestly, everything had stopped the moment Rodney had taken off without so much as a word, leaving hurt behind him like smoke that wouldn’t clear out of a room. John had had all those distractions, life, and his job, and the constant threat of each new insane little crisis about to unfold. He just hadn’t cared.

And now he was here, up in Jeanie’s guest room, laying on the bed with his head in Rodney’s lap, careful not to put pressure where it’d hurt him— _still_ half-expecting Rodney to bitch and bitch and bitch that yes, it still hurt, did he honestly think he was as skinny as he looked, because _ow_ —toying with the t-shirt Rodney was dressed in because he couldn’t keep his hands away.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that McKay?” he said, the words coming out gently, almost thoughtfully. “A jerk. A grade-a dickhead. And if you don’t wake up I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t—I don’t know how to go back to Atlantis without you. I don’t think they’ll let me back.”

The worst part, he thought as he continued to talk, was that it was a lie. A big, rubber-band ball of lies. If he had to, he’d go back alone. He’d do his job. He’d smile at Teyla and make a skateboard for Torren—he already had the plans to make one, just in case he couldn’t have one shipped over—and run with Ronon and watch movies and have popcorn fights with the lady lieutenants when they had their poker game, and kill things and smile at women in just _that_ way, and be okay. 

Because Rodney would expect nothing less.

It just wouldn’t be _him_ any longer.


	2. Chapter 2

“Have you heard of the five stages of grief?” Teyla asked unexpectedly.

John wasn’t really confined to his quarters, except how he was _mentally_ , so most of the people John hadn’t realized were his friends took to dropping by in certain set hours. Like visiting hours for the mentally insane. Or maybe criminally.

Teyla, Ronon, Zelenka, Keller and, unexpectedly, Woolsey were the exceptions. They showed up any old time.

Keller— _call me Jennifer, please_ —still looked deeply uncomfortable in John’s room, but she was stubborn and wouldn’t leave first. “I have,” she said, brightly. “It’s when—oh, you meant the Colonel.”

Teyla flashed an amused smile but said, “Do you, John?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t rude enough to ignore them completely—also, he knew that was like _waving a red toreador flag_ —but he kept his answers terse. It hadn’t made them leave, yet. “... why?”

“Because I believe you may have reached the stage called acceptance. Unfortunately, I believe it is acceptance without understanding. John,” she continued, like there weren’t two other people in the room and one of them _wasn’t_ Ronon, “have you truly no idea?”

“Does it matter?” Socratic method. Good. He hadn’t tried this one yet, and a head-tilt from Teyla was the equivalent of double-take in surprise from anyone else. “He’ll come back when he’s ready. I can’t force him.”

“You could ask him to return.”

 _And if he says no?_ “I can’t ask him that.” Belatedly, he added, “And why should I? What right do I have?”

It took three patently dumbfounded expressions for John to hear what he’d just asked.

“Um. I mean.”

Jennifer leaned down to give Ronon a nervous poke on the shoulder. He was on the floor, mostly near her feet, which seemed to make both of them jumpy. “Are all guys like this?” she asked. “This—I don’t even know what to call it. _Oblivious?”_

Ronon snorted. “Sometimes. Not usually _this_ stupid.”

“I didn’t say stupid—”

“You should’ve,” Ronon interrupted with a fierce glare at John. “It _is_ stupid.”

“Well, yes. It really is.”

Across the room, Teyla nodded a firm _thirded_.

John wanted to throw up his hands. No, actually, he wanted to beat their faces to a _pulp_ , but throwing up his hands was a more acceptable alternative. “I’m his commanding officer,” he gritted out. “I can _order_ him back here if there’s cause and no, the three of you nodding fiercely does not equal cause. That’s all I can do.”

“If you asked, he’d come back.”

There was something so delicate in the way Ronon said that. So—careful. _Truthful_ , and John knew it, had known it for a while. Fortunately, he was good at denial. Ignoring the clawing sensation in his throat, he threw a pillow and said, “I’m not asking him. You ask him.”

“I have,” Teyla said, low and sad and that shut John up.

It wasn’t like John didn’t understand. With the grace of absence—five days, it’d been five god damned days absence but he _wasn’t counting_ —he could see the way the last few months had unfolded, Rodney increasingly buried in his work—normal, except how it really wasn’t, because John wasn’t used to hearing Rodney say _no_ outside of a crisis, and mostly not even then. He’d been oddly distant no matter how he smiled and joked like usual, and wow, his _temper_. Rodney was volatile under good circumstances, but that was often a blessing, too, because Rodney didn’t hold grudges. Not really. Oh, when he _remembered_ , yes, then he held grudges till the end of _time_ , but get him excited, get him interested in something and bam, instant, gleeful smile because he was all about the discovery, about the race to know something fastest, most, and best and everything else got wiped away.

Except for the last few months, he’d remembered to hold grudges. Deep, bitter— _John-related_ —painful ones.

John closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time Rodney had given his fantastically boyish grin. Then he tried to remember the last time he’d shared it with _him._

“Ah,” Teyla said. “Perhaps I was mistaken. I am—glad, although I am unsure if that is the right word.”

“I hate you,” he whispered without opening his eyes.

She responded by joining him on the bed, kneeling over him so that her long hair hid his face—it smelled spicy and rich, like cinnamon without the sweet, and it made his eyes sting—gently touching her forehead to his. “I love you, as well, John Sheppard,” she murmured. “Please ask him to come home. I am tired of seeing you mope. And I miss him.”

There was no withstanding that and if she’d trotted _this_ maneuver the day Rodney’d left—except she wouldn’t have, John knew. He wasn’t ready for it then. He wasn’t actually sure he was ready for it _now_

“Does he even want me to ask him?”

Teyla sat back on her heels, silently allowing the others into the conversation. She looked thoughtful. “I am honestly not sure. I know he _will_ come, but...”

“But you’re here, Sheppard,” Ronon said. “And he’s not. So we work with you.”

“Thanks. So glad to know I’m your newest project.”

“I’m taking up wood-working next.”

John immediately envisioned his room full of the creations he was certain Ronon would foist on him, and strangely, found he didn’t mind it. And some of those imagined creations were pretty damned hideous. Just in case. 

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll ask him.”

And then, bizarrely, the room went _really quiet._

“That was easier than I thought it would be,” Teyla confessed, right over John’s head like he wasn’t even there. “Perhaps he is lying to us?”

“I dunno. He looks pretty sincere. Well, and crazy. I think it’s the eyes,” Jennifer confessed. “Or maybe the way he’s glaring at me like he wants to kill me.”

Ronon growled, “He’s not going to hurt you,” just as Teyla mused, “Or perhaps it was not too easy. He does want Rodney’s return as much as we do. He is not quite—Jennifer, how did Radek put it?”

“I’m not saying that! He still looks like he wants to kill me.”

“He wants to kill all of us, Jennifer, do not fear. Ah! Emotionally stunted, was the phrase.”

John let all of this wash over him. He did, in fact, want to kill all of them, or maybe just break their jaws so they couldn’t talk about this near him, or anyone else since clearly they’d involved _everyone_ in John’s private business. He still felt raw when ever he thought about it, scrapped to red abrasions and exposed like a fish flopping breathlessly on a beach, but that, in a way, was the point. 

As painful as it was, the implicit understanding was its own kind of boon. _Of course_ everyone wanted Rodney to come back home. _Of course_ everyone knew it was up to John to make that happen.

And, also implicitly, he’d come home to _John._

He really _was_ emotionally stunted.

He wasn’t, however, stupid. A few more moments of this completely inane conversation and he barked out, “What the hell is going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

Twenty minutes later he found himself sitting, hard, on Woolsey’s chair. The video feed had that odd waver to it that always accompanied ’gate transmissions but Carter’s voice came through crystal clear. 

“... yesterday that we realized we weren’t picking up his signal. We’re certain we’ve lost only about four hours,” she said, addressing herself to Woolsey this time, “and we’re checking all of the usual sources to see if we can figure out what’s going on. We’ve also contacted his sister and if she doesn’t respond in another hour, we’re asking one of our contacts in the Canadian military to go check it out. It’s _probably_ nothing, John,” she said, and there was such a wealth of intimate detail in her voice that John had to grip the arms of his chair so not to say something incredibly stupid. “In fact, he’s probably going to be furious with us for being so intrusive. He was pretty—direct about how available he’d be.”

As in _not at all_ , John finished mentally. Then, “Sir, request permission to—”

“I’m sure Teyla would be willing to pack you a bag?” Woolsey said, and yes, clearly Teyla was since she damn near sprinted out of the room. “Colonel, I am ordering you to Earth to determine the whereabouts of our Chief of Science and return him to us. Colonel, er, that is Colonel Carter—my, that is confusing,” he stuttered, “can the SGC—”

“We know how to handle this,” Carter said firmly. “John, do you remember where my lab is? I’ll be there.”

“I suspect we won’t be redialing,” Woolsey said, dryly. “If you’ll give us just a moment.”

“Of course,” Carter said. The screen didn’t go blank, but she stepped away and John figured she’d cut the sound and told everyone to look anywhere but at the monitor. It was the kind of thing Carter did.

“I’m going alone,” he said immediately. The words were for Ronon, but he kept his eyes on Woolsey. “I’ll move fastest on my own.”

“One, I hardly believe Ronon would actually slow you down in any situation, and two, you’re assuming that speed will be required—”

“Of course it will!” John yelled, halfway to his feet in agitation. “He missed his check-in, the sub-q is _gone_ , something’s wrong, something’s _always_ wrong with McKay, Christ, he’s like a damned trouble magnet!”

“— _but I agree,_ in this case, you should probably go alone. I want you to contact the SGC daily, or work some other arrangement out, and we’ll find some way to reach them as frequently as necessary.” Woolsey said all of that so calmly, so sharp and precise that John felt like a balloon jabbed by a hundred pins not quite thick enough to pierce the surface tension. He didn’t pop so much as just sag.

Then Teyla was back in the room with a black bag clutched in her hands and Woolsey was waving awkwardly at the screen until Carter reappeared, saying, “He’s coming through now, Colonel,” while Carter said, apologetically, “We should have contacted you immediately, but until we realized the subcutaneous transmitter wasn’t functioning, we had no reason to think he was doing anything but even more sulking, and—”

Whatever else she said, John ignored it favor of tearing down the stairs without so much as a wave or a promise to the people watching him. She’d tell him again, in person.

* * *

**Now**

“I,” John told the ceiling, “am _drunk.”_

It was only a six pack. Actually, John frowned, rolling onto his stomach to reexamine just how many beers he’d had. “Not a six pack,” he determined. “A three pack. I am drunk on three beers.”

They didn’t drink a lot on Atlantis. You go through one or two emergency when you were trying not to giggle at inopportune moments or fall down when you really, _really_ needed to run and suddenly, drinking copiously lost its attraction. So at least John had _reason_ for being this much of a light-weight.

“I don’t think I’ve eaten,” he said, aware that he was slurring and not really giving a damn. “That might’ve helped. Be helping.”

Madison was at daycare. She’d been scarce since John got here, as John was usually with Rodney and she was reluctant to go inside his room. Jeanie claimed it was the smell of the bandages, but John figured that she was just disturbed by how broken her sturdy, vibrant uncle looked. The way they all were, really. 

They just didn’t have the benefit of being five years old when it came to expressing it.

“Maybe I should have another. Whaddya think, Rodney?”

Kaleb was at work. Jeanie was doing god knew what, only that she’d promised to be gone for the whole day unless there was an emergency and _John, there better not be an emergency._ She’d glared at him so fiercely, so _much_ like her brother that John had found himself rolling his eyes out of sheer habit. He’d immediately apologized and then promised yes, nothing was going to happen.

She’d made him memorize her cell-phone number. And then wrote it down in five separate places.

“You know I don’t remember getting the beer? Why do they even _have_ beer? They’re vega–vegati—vegans. Don’t vegans not drink beer? Christ, my head.” The room gave a nice, lazy sea-side lurch and John squirmed around until he was on his side, looking at Rodney. That anchored his vision pretty well. “I probably shouldn’t be drinking,” he confessed, “but I can’t help it. You won’t wake up.”

Very, very quietly, Rodney huffed again.

He’d been doing it off and on. Jeanie said that, when he was hooked up to EKG machines at the hospital, the noise always accompanied a spike a of brain activity. But brain activity wasn’t enough and Rodney stayed wherever the hell he was.

“Is it nicer there? Is that why you won’t wake up? They telled—told me what happened. The nurse did, anyway. Jeanie wouldn’t. Why can’t I remember her name? The nurse, not Jeanie. I remember Jeanie’s name.”

The nurse had said, _“He’s very lucky, this lad. He got himself nicely goosed at a bar in Toronto and wandered out to his car. The bartender should’ve taken his keys away, not that that would’ve made a difference, I suppose. Another nicely goosed up gent had hot-wired a vehicle and was riding it along the curb without realizing it. He couldn’t figure out why all those people were in his way and, well. That’s what saved our lad, here, really. The idiot wasn’t going all that fast. Otherwise he would’ve broken his head, instead of just concussing it.”_

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t have a Scottish accent, though,” John told Rodney’s stomach thoughtfully. “And I don’t know why she thinks a broken is head is worse than you _not waking up.”_

A piece of something metal—railing from a street-sign, was the doctor’s best guess—had been driven into Rodney’s thigh and had to be surgically removed. He had a hairline fracture on his wrist, which was going to drive him _crazy_ when he wanted to start working, again, and a bunch of cracked ribs. He also had roughly—John kept getting a different count—a hundred and fifty different bloody scrapes and cuts of a variety of seriousness all over his body, including one bloody gash on his forearm where the sub-cutaneous transmitter had been violently ripped out and, given its _lack of transmission_ , crushed or otherwise broken.

John hadn’t bothered counting the bruises. In some places, there weren’t bruis _es_ so much as one giant, mottled bruise turning greenish underneath the bandages.

“Rodney. McKay. _Meredith!”_

Nothing.

“Fuck.” John was an emotional drunk. Not necessarily weepy, although if he had the other beer he was dreaming of then yeah, he’d be a weepy drunk. “Don’t make me go back alone, okay? Don’t make me go back and tell them I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t save you. That I was too late. I can’t be too late, not again.”

So much of John’s life was left until too late—his father, his marriage, his career, _Hollister._ It’d worked itself out, mostly, and all of it, _all_ of it was worth it to be where he was now, but he couldn’t face the thought that this was it. This was the final too late. Hidden treasures like Atlantis and its quirky, fucked-up group of people that stupidly deemed John capable of leading them weren’t waiting around every corner, and John had seen enough luck turn bad to know that lightning didn’t strike twice.

“Maybe just with one metaphor, though,” he told Rodney. “I’m getting those confused.”

John was a _talkative_ drunk. It was the real reason he didn’t indulge that often.

The room felt closed in, sealed away like there was shield surrounding all four corners. The air was musty, heavy with the smell of two grown men who weren’t bathing quite as frequently or as thoroughly as they should’ve in a room with an unopened window, a harsh layer of antiseptic running over everything. It made John want to gag, whenever he came back in, but he got used to it quickly enough. Because once he was inside, he didn’t want to leave. Not for a minute. Not even to pee.

“Jeanie’s reading the _Brothers Grimm_ to your niece. I can hear her, sometimes. I think she means me to. Like if I just lean down and kiss you,” as gentle as the brush of a cloud, John kissed Rodney’s shirt-covered stomach, “you’ll wake up. Or maybe if I tell you I love you. I do, you know that, right? I’m not good at saying it. I’ve gotta be drunk, like now. Or feeling romantic, and I can _do_ romantic. You never wanna hear about it, though. I’d be romantic for you, if you wanted, Rodney,” he said, miserably. “It’s the only way I know how to say it. Or not say it. Something.”

Rodney wasn’t the only one who needed some kind of formula, rules and suggested behaviors to abide by. John just faked it better.

In the darkness, in the quiet, John stretched up to kiss Rodney’s mouth. His lips weren’t chapped anymore since John had asked Jeanie to buy the balm-stuff Rodney liked, not at all surprised when Jeanie made an appalled face and said, “Oh, god, I completely forgot, of course!” without John having to tell her which kind. He tasted bitter, like those damned shakes and ground up pills and too much damn _sleeping_. So John kissed him again.

And then again, and again, all over Rodney’s face.

“Wake up, Rodney, _dammit_. I’m drunk, and I love you, and you have to wake up. We’ll get those adjoining rooms you wanted, the ones all the senior staff are moving into. Did you hear that, Rodney?” he demanded, kissing Rodney’s ear just to be certain. “You win, we’ll move, prove it to everyone who isn’t an utter moron because they all already know, anyway. Yes, we’re fucking, that I fucking _love_ you, and you’re besotted with me, and that we should be sent home, that we really shouldn’t be on the same team because it’s dangerous, and I don’t care. It’s been over a year and we’re still good, we’re still okay no matter what kind of shit happens, and I love you, you _hear_ me? Wake up.”

The words were a jumbled mess, frantic as they echoed back inside his head, but John didn’t care. Rodney always understood him, always _got_ him, and he’d get this too.

John didn’t think about the last few months when there wasn’t much _getting_. That didn’t matter. This time, it mattered.

He really wanted that fourth beer.

“What about blowing you? I could do that, would that wake you up? Not very Disney, but probably more like the real fairy tales. Sex and death. Cap—capricy. Capricious,” he finished, triumphantly getting out the right syllables. And then, “Oh, right. The catheter.”

That’d make it difficult. Also, _ow._

Drifting, John tucked his face into Rodney’s neck and moved in closer. “I couldn’t jack off while you were gone,” he confessed. Or rather, he could but he’d stopped after the third time. He hadn’t been getting himself off so much as stripping his cock _raw_ , making it ache as much as his insides did. So he’d stopped. 

“I wanted to. Wanted to prove I didn’t need you, or something. Dumb of me, huh? It doesn’t matter if I need you. Even if I do.”

John was _good_ at denial. So he’d known, hell, he’d known Rodney was right to blame him for this _immediately_.

But he still hadn’t really understood.

“’Cause I want you,” John said, the words coming up from the center of his chest, too big even as he said them. “Christ, you fucking _suck_ , I want you, I want you _always_ , all the damned time, and you have to wake up. Just. Wake up.”

Rodney kept breathing and didn’t wake up. 

John had not only the fourth beer, but the fifth and sixth too.

When Jeanie came back she slapped him, hard, and then made him drink enough water to fill the Indian Ocean, her tears soaking into his shoulder, _“God, John, he has to wake up, what if he doesn’t wake up?”_ as he slurped down glass after glass.

* * *

**Then**

“Ma’am!” The funny-looking bald guy who manned the ’gate burst into the lab with his glasses askew. “Ma’am, it’s Jeanie Miller. She’s was in the phone tree. And, uh, she’s pretty pissed. Someone routed her in there by mistake. Twice.”

John felt like he was plugged into a socket, full to bursting but he couldn’t _move._ “Rodney—”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Carter said to the terribly polite Canadian Aircom officer, “but I think we may have figured out the mystery. Do you mind if I put you on hold?”

The Lieutenant did not, and the moment the screen brought up the SGC’s logo, Sam grabbed the bald man—what _was_ his name?—by the collar and yanked him forward. “Why is she not being transferred down here?”

“She’s, ah, she’s on line two.”

Carter beat John to the phone by dint of having limbs that didn’t feel like overcooked spaghetti shot through with lightning. “Mrs. Miller? Hi, this is Colonel Sam Carter, we—he is. Yes, I understand, I—of course. Oh, no. Yes.”

In some sort of weird slow motion, John managed to turn his head. “I need a ticket to Canada,” he wobbled. “Soonest possible.”

“Military transport,” the bald— _Harriman_ said, handing him a sheaf of paper. “There are no ships in orbit, unfortunately and as much as I’d like to,” and wow, John really didn’t want to know what _this_ compound knew about him given how sympathetic Harriman looked, “I can’t offer you one of the 302's. This is the fastest way.”

Carter hung up the phone and John thought, that _bitch_ , I’m going to _kill her_ , but then she was toggling the Lieutenant back on screen. “Colonel John Sheppard is going to be arriving at,” she listened to Harriman’s quick whisper, “oh-five hundred tomorrow morning. Can you have someone drive him to the Miller’s? I’m forwarding the address.”

The Lieutenant could, and John was aware that other things were discussed, but the sound came through like it was underwater, like he was in a damned _Peanuts_ cartoon, stuck behind a child’s too-small desk.

Then, so suddenly it was painful, everything snapped back to real time. “John,” Sam said, leaning down until she caught his eyes, hands too hot and tight on his shoulders. “He’s okay. Rodney’s alive and _okay_.”

He didn’t hear anything else until well after he climbed a toy-strewn flight of stairs.

* * *

**Now**

“Mummy?”

Saturday morning at the Miller house. It was more subdued than usual, although that was mostly due to the buckets of rain pouring down outside. Later, Kaleb promised he’d take his girls out to a movie and, said in the same pleasant tone of voice, if John was drunk when they got back, he was getting kicked out of the house.

Still hung-over, John had waved a feeble hand. Sure, sure.

“Mummy!”

Jeanie seemed a little hung-over herself, sitting with both elbows on the kitchen table, dark circles under her eyes making her look jaundiced. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Can I have some ice?”

“Ice? Um. Sure, hang on.” The refrigerator had an ice setting, thankfully.

Madison examined the cup she was given thoughtfully. “Can I have more, Mummy? And can it be smaller?”

“Smaller cup or smaller ice? And not too much more, Mad. I don’t want you making a mess.”

“I won’t!” Madison promised with the radiant, angelic smile of a blonde, blue-eyed five year old little girl.

Both her parents immediately grimaced, but Jeanie obediently dumped out the ice, reprogramming the ice-maker to spit out something like mushy chips, and grudgingly filled the cup an additional inch. “Is this okay?”

“Great, Mummy, thank you!” And then she promptly vanished. With the ice.

“I am afraid,” Jeanie told the room.

“I’m always afraid. And I’ll clean it up.”

“If we get mildew, we’re going to have to move to another house because I am not cleaning it up.”

“I said,” Kaleb repeated without rancor, “I’d clean it up. We don’t have to move.”

“Maybe we should,” she said, almost to herself.

“No.” Wait, that was _him_ speaking, John realized, and took his palms away from his mouth. “No, you’re not moving. There are—facilities. I’ll. I’ll take care of it.”

Kaleb shoved his newspaper aside impatiently. “We’re not there yet. Don’t borrow trouble, Colonel.”

“Don’t sound like my grandmother, _Kaleb,”_ Jeanie shot back, in the same tone. “It’s been two weeks. A full two weeks since he got hurt. We have to start—start thinking about—”

“I’ll take care of it,” John repeated. “He’s—we’re military, we’re _SGC_ , I know that—”

“Do you know why they called me?” Jeanie asked, eerily calm despite the suddenly falsetto pitch. Behind her, rain streaked sideways across the kitchen window. “Do you know why he didn’t go to a military hospital, why you guys didn’t know immediately? I wondered. So I checked. He didn’t have any of his military ids with him, Colonel. Not one. All he had was his expired driver’s license, and thank _God_ I’m recorded as his emergency contact because otherwise he’d be a John Doe and _none_ of us would know—”

“Mrs. Miller.” John wasn’t sure why he chose that phrase, but it worked. She stopped, glassy-eyed and frantic, staring at him. “Mrs. Miller, if you were ever injured, who would you rather take care of you: your brother, or your husband?”

Both of them stared at him, eyes comically wide.

John said, “I’ll make any arrangements.”

It wasn’t like they didn’t know, he reasoned. But knowing it and _hearing_ it—those were different things. For him, too: he was going to _throw up_ , but it felt right.

The nausea was probably just the alcohol, anyway.

In the midst of this, Madison clattered back down the stairs and held up her empty cup. “Can I have more, Mummy?”

Swallowing, Jeanie quickly dashed at her eyes saying, “Already? What are you doing up there? And are you doing it in the bathtub, please?”

Madison wrinkled her nose, grinning to expose a few missing teeth. “I’m not playing in the tub! Uncle Rodney’s just really thirsty.”

The cup shattered on the floor.

“Go,” Kaleb said, yanking Madison up into his arms, ignoring the way she started to cry. “I’ll clean it up, both of you just—go.”

John was already halfway through the living room, tripping over toys and not caring, just _going_ because Rodney was awake, _might be_ awake, and okay, and Jesus, he better be okay, he better, “... because I am going to kill you, you son of a bitch,” John heard himself say as he mounted the last of the stairs and pounded down the hallway, Jeanie hot on his heels. “If you are not awake, I am going to fucking _kill you.”_

He stopped short in the doorway, staring—and then promptly pitched forward when Jeanie slammed into him, knocking him onto his knees beside Rodney’s bed. Rodney, who was awake, carefully pushed into a more upright position with a mountain of pink pillows that had _arms_ —crinkly, squishy _arms_ —to support him, looking at them curiously. “Did you bring the water?” he rasped. Then he blinked and said, “John? Why are you on the floor?”

Jeanie said, voice trembling and thick, “I’ll go get you water, Mer,” and John said, “I fell down,” and Rodney said, “I can’t hear you when you’re both talking at the same time. Also, ow. I’d really like that water, please.”

So John said, “Yeah, thanks, I need to—” and Jeanie said, “I’ll get it, I’ve got it, it’s okay, oh _Mer,”_ and then John didn’t listen anymore because he was kissing Rodney, kissing him hard and fast, all breath and emotion and rough, hard lips, hands cupping warm cheeks—he needed a shave again, John would do it—hard enough to hurt and he didn’t care when Rodney said, “Ow,” because Rodney was _awake_ , because only awake people could say, “Ow.”

* * *

**Later**

John leaned on the balcony. He’d always wanted a room with a view, some way to just look out and go yes, _there_ , out there where it was wide and blue, open arms just waiting to welcome him.

So the balcony part was kind of nice. Like a cracked window for someone with claustrophobia.

Inside, Rodney was organizing the Great Interior Design Adventure, part the fourth. 

“Think of it like training,” Ronon murmured to one frustrated marine. They had to be standing close to the clear, sliding doors for John to hear it so clearly. “How to take orders in adverse conditions.”

“If he would just make up his _mind,”_ Vyas moaned. “He’s worse than when I helped my sister and her kids move.”

John waited for the interior designer joke. He’d been waiting for it since this morning, when Rodney stormed into his room and claimed he wasn’t waiting any longer, get up, Colonel, they were burning daylight.

“You’re getting out of sparring for a couple days.”

There was a moment of profound silence—well, as silent as it could be with something screeching across the floor, Rodney an extra helping of falsetto dismay over top—and then Vyas said, “With all due respect, sir? I think we’re getting the short end of the stick.”

Ronon snorted, loudly, in agreement. Which was why he’d offered to let them out of sparring in the first place, John was sure. Clever, a little cruel, but ultimately useful: the many flavors of Ronon’s leadership style, when he chose to exercise it.

“Back to work, soldier,” Ronon said, gruffly and then wandered out to lean next to John on the railing. The sliding door snicked closed the same exact way an Earth door would. “Nice view.”

“I like it.”

“You gonna go help?”

John cocked an eyebrow. “Think it’s pretty crowded in there.”

Ronon gave him a look. It said, _You are deeply stupid, John._ “Wait too long and he’ll organize your place, too. Or is that what you’re hoping for?”

Inside, Rodney squawked, unnaturally loud, “Don’t you dare drop that! If I have to order another one from Earth I promise you, you will _never again_ be able to piss anywhere in Atlantis without a shock.”

“Wow,” deadpanned Lindiak, one of the largest woman John had ever seen and one of the first outside of Rodney’s commandeered marines to volunteer—to save the poor, beleaguered men as they hauled a mattress wider than the hallways, she’d claimed. “That’s kinky, McKay.”

“Oh, just—just don’t drop it,” Rodney spluttered. It sounded normal enough, but John could hear the sincerity in Rodney’s voice, the worry that whatever it was _would_ be dropped. And maybe break.

Which meant it was his. John’s.

Beside him, Ronon was looking out over the waves like each white-capped wrinkle had a story of its own to tell. “Well?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t bother,” John mused quietly. “With the second suite.” Adjoining suite. With a door that Rodney had assured him was well covered and wouldn’t be seen by the men and women running around like ants. “It’s—kinda superfluous, really.”

Ronon let out another snort, the one that would’ve been _hyena laughter_ from just about everyone else, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. John staggered only a little. “Sheppard, nobody wants to be in the rooms next to yours and McKay’s.”

John had just a moment to think, _What the hell does_ that _mean?_ when Rodney carefully opened the door, surreptitiously holding his wrist as he claimed John’s other side. “Teyla threw me out,” he pouted.

Taking in the high, hectic flush on his cheeks, the way his shoulders were almost imperceptibly trembling, his breath coming just a little too fast, John murmured, “Think she probably had a reason, buddy.”

“If I say ‘I’m fine’ anymore, people are going to think I’m you.”

There was a joke in there about just how _fine_ Rodney was, but John was distracted by the sun glinting off Rodney’s cheeks, the stubble that framed his lower lip dyed silvery white. He tamped down the urge to kiss, right there, and instead thought fondly of the straight blade Kaleb had given him before they’d returned home.

“What are you—oh, for—Sheppard!” Rodney spluttered, red for an entirely new reason.

John liked this one a whole lot better. Laughing, he slung and arm around Rodney’s waist, exerting pressure until Rodney finally sighed, and grumped, and leaned against him comfortably. “Gonna tell me you don’t want to?”

“Well it’s not like it’s particularly easy for me,” Rodney snapped back, lifting his still-bandaged hand. He had at least another week before he could use it with any dexterity, according to Keller. “And, um. No. I wouldn’t tell you that.”

“Thought so.”

“God, you’re annoying.” Which was Rodney-code for _You’re giving me a new kink, dammit. Please continue._

John just smiled, unrepentant. Around them, the breeze flirted and teased, letting clean salt and that peculiar sweet, thin scent that meant you were very high up swirl against their skin. Teyla was directing the marines inside, calmly getting everything such that Rodney—and, ostensibly, John—could arrange the rest themselves. When the last of the marines shuffled out with grateful sighs and calls for promised beer, she joined them outside, choosing to lean against the wall so she could watch the three of them and the endless expanse beyond.

“I had them leave only boxes in your rooms, John.”

It was a test. John knew it was, to see if he would stiffen or jerk away from Rodney, practically dozing where he stood, or maybe turn red and growl something about presumption, all of which really translated into _Crap, they’re all going to know._

John couldn’t stop himself from swallowing, but he said only, “Thanks, Teyla. That’s great.”

“It is mostly your work, which you refuse to leave in your office. Is there something wrong with that room?” Teyla was fascinated with the idea of having an office, of clearly delineating what was _work_ and what was _life._ “I do not understand why you will not use it.”

Because unlike Teyla, who had never before had the luxury of separating the two, John had always been forced to choose. Work _or_ having a life. Being who he was or keeping his job.

“People know where to find me if they need me,” John said. And, belatedly, “Thanks, Teyla. I’ll take care of that stuff later. Did you thank them for me?”

“Rodney did,” Teyla said, smile fond. Rodney was really out now, against John’s shoulder; he’d been doing that ever since he woke up and each time John’s heart went just a little tight and painful until he woke up again. “He was quite sincere.”

“Yeah? I wish I’d seen that.”

“You do all the time,” she teased. Exchanging an amused look with Ronon, she leaned forward to first kiss Rodney’s cheek, then eeled around to kiss John’s. “Put him to bed, John. He is still tired.”

Putting Rodney to bed in their—officially Rodney’s—new, human-sized bed sounded damn good to John, but he still willfully misunderstood, saying, “Yeah, sure. You two still want to go over the Almorathians agreement again? We need to go back there, once Rodney’s up to off-world missions.”

Shaking her head, Teyla flicked her fingers at his ear. “Do not make me smack you again,” she said, regally. “It would jar Rodney. Ronon?”

Smirking as openly as John had ever seen, Ronon made it to the doorway before he paused. “Sheppard? Thanks for bringing him back.” Then he, too, was gone.

John let the sun completely fill his gaze, blinding him as it sank further and further to the West. “Like there was any doubt,” he whispered. Then, “C’mon, McKay, wake up. Sleeping standing up is gonna be hell on your back. Don’t you wanna go inside with your nice, new bed? I’ll even make it for you.”

“Mm,” Rodney said, sleepy and muddled. “Teyla made it already. And Lindiak. They were laughin’t’me.” After a few moments he sighed gustily and pushed himself onto his own weight. Mostly. “You can keep it warm for me, though.”

The question was barely audible, a left over trace despite the discussions—and fights—they’d had since Rodney had woken up. Since they’d come back to Atlantis. Since John had fought against the habits that clung to his skin like shadows, comforting and familiar and _wrong_.

John brushed a kiss against his neck. “I can do that.”


End file.
